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On Wednesday, Yale University announced the creation of the Yale Leadership Center in Beijing, which will host leadership programming offered by schools and centers across the university. The Yale Leadership Center will be operated by the Yale School of Management (SOM), which will work to expand the growing array of conferences and workshops for Chinese leaders that Yale has offered in both China and New Haven.

It will be Yale’s only center in China, hosting programming from the entire university community. The facility will act as a hub for leadership development activities and will facilitate research, act as a platform for discussions and conferences, and provide a home base for professional and executive education efforts. It will also have offices for faculty from throughout Yale to use when they are in Beijing, as well as flexible workspace for SOM’s MBA, MAM, and PhD students.

The center is made possible by generous gifts from two Yale alumni and one Yale friend who are committed to deepening the mutually beneficial relationship between the university and their home country.

“This center is meaningful given the importance of China and the United States to the global economy, but also given their central roles in all major issues facing business and society,” said Yale SOM Dean Edward A. Snyder in a statement announcing the news.

Speaking on behalf of all three founding donors, Shen noted Yale’s long history with China and Chinese students, which dates “back to 1854 when Yung Wing, the very first Chinese student to receive a degree from an American University, graduated from Yale.”

The founders want this new center to accelerate efforts to cultivate academic and cultural exchanges between China and the United States, Shen says, which will benefit both their home country and Yale.

“At the School of Management, we continually seek out ways in which to deepen our intellectual and programmatic connection to Yale for the benefit of our students, faculty, and alumni,” says Snyder. “This center and its opening conference will be another opportunity to engage all of Yale’s schools and departments.”

Yale will inaugurate the center with a major conference, convened by Yale SOM on October 26-27, 2014.

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This post originally appeared on Stacy’s “Strictly Business” MBA Blog on U.S.News.comMarketing efforts to attract lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender MBA applicants are not cut-and-dried. While business schools can easily target potential candidates by ethnicity, asking applicants to identify themselves based on sexual orientation is not a standard demographic question.

Nevertheless, LGBT applicants can benefit greatly from researching their target schools’ outreach efforts, campus clubs and inclusiveness toward their LGBT community as an important factor when selecting potential schools.

Many gay and lesbian applicants wonder if they should openly address their sexual orientation as they begin the MBA admissions process. The LGBT Student Association at Harvard Business School, for one, urges applicants to be “out” in their MBA application and notes that the admissions office is not only very gay friendly but that it’s excited to increase the LGBT presence at the business school.

The admissions officers want to learn about you as a person, beyond your GPA and GMAT scores. “It is perfectly appropriate – and, again, probably advisable – for essays to reflect who you are as a whole person, including your sexuality and gender identity/expression, if you choose to do so,” the student group explains.

I once worked with a client, “David,” who on the surface had a rock-solid background. He had followed an extremely traditional progression from Ivy League undergrad to banking to business school, but something in his story lacked depth.

David’s essays didn’t provide a lot of detail as to why he had made certain decisions or what had fueled different moments, experiences and reactions. Then, during one phone call, he came out to me. This had been a very personal struggle for him, and at the time not even his parents knew of his sexual orientation.

Our discussion opened up terms of his pressures, decisions and personality. I encouraged him to reveal this side of himself in the applications as it really shed light on who he was. His sexuality didn’t become the focus of his essays, but acknowledging it allowed him to speak more openly about his identity and what mattered to him.

He did end up being accepted to Columbia Business School when he reapplied. He hadn’t revealed his sexual orientation in the first attempt.

I don’t think the fact that he was gay got David in; however, I do believe his willingness to show introspection and be more open about himself in his application helped tremendously.

Although business schools have progressed dramatically of late on LGBT issues, more can be done. In a recent GMAC article exploring outreach efforts to LGBT applicants, columnist Ronald Alsop says that, while schools have increased efforts in marketing to LGBT candidates, they’re still a very small minority of MBA programs.

“According to GMAC’s 2013 Application Trends Survey, only nine percent of graduate business programs worldwide and only 13 percent in the US reported any special LGBT outreach efforts,” Alsop says.

Liz Riley Hargrove, associate dean for admissions at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, notes that the school began hosting an LGBT Weekend in 2011 to show off its gay-friendly culture and dispel any negative perceptions of Southern stuffiness.

“We need more LGBT students so the classroom is representative of the workforce our students will manage,” she tells Alsop. “Exposure to different perspectives will affect our students’ management and leadership styles.”

Bloomberg Businessweek recently polled MBA students from several schools on how diverse they felt their program was. It was interesting to see the comments of one student from Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, which scores exceptionally well on the Campus Pride Index for its LGBT-friendly policies, programs and practices.

Even so, student Arnab Mukherjee tells Businessweek that as a gay man, he would like to see more LGBT alumni or faculty addressing issues of gender and sexuality in the workplace through academic case studies, guest lecturers or career-related events.

“I don’t think these are critiques that would be unique to Cornell Johnson, though, as I have heard exactly the same feedback from friends at other top programs, such as Chicago Booth, HBS, NYU Stern, and Stanford,” Mukherjee says.

Fortunately, students don’t have to rely solely on the networking opportunities within the LGBT clubs and organizations on campus. At the annual Reaching Out MBA conference and career fair, for both? prospective and current MBA students, several hundred LGBT students from across the country can come together and expand their professional networks in a meaningful way.

New York University Stern School of Business alumnus Matt Kidd, the executive director of Reaching Out MBA, tells Poets & Quants that component is especially important for LGBT MBAs outside of large metropolitan areas – places where there may not be a large gay or lesbian population.

“The difference there is that you really need to focus on your classmates, and if you only have one or two, it’s a pretty small LGBT population.”

The LGBT population at business schools may be small, but its visibility is growing and the diverse perspectives members of this community can provide to an MBA cohort is not lost on business school admissions committees.

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More than one thousand MBA students from Europe’s leading business schools will compete in the ultimate business school Olympics at HEC Paris later this week. London Business School, IE Business School and INSEAD are among 13 top schools taking students to the annual MBA Tournament (MBAT).

Hosted and organized by students at HEC Paris, the MBAT is largest gathering of MBA candidates at any single event in Europe. Here, participants can network with other students and alumni from across the globe, develop their team working abilities and, of course, take home a little sporting glory.

This year, teams will compete in 23 sports, from football, cricket and rugby to chess, poker and – new to 2014 – ultimate frisbee. There are also themed evening events, such as a Glam Rock party, to give competitors the opportunity to unwind and make new friends.

“The MBAT is one of the best things we do at HEC Paris,” says MBAT Co-President Katrina Senn, will join her fellow classmates in the HEC Paris ultimate frisbee team. “The competition brings classmates together as a team and lets us show other schools what we’re capable of. In fact, this year, we’re seeing increased participation from all of the schools coming to compete as it continues to gain in popularity.”

This year’s participating schools are:

University of Cambridge Judge Business School

Cranfield University School of Management

IE Business School

INSEAD

London Business School

Manchester Business School

University of Oxford Saïd Business School

RSM Erasmus University

TiasNimbas Business School

ESADE Business School

IESE Business School

Lancaster University Management School

HEC Paris

For the organizers, creating the event has been a valuable experience. “It’s been a crazy ride. I came to HEC with little leadership experience – I started as an English teacher in Japan – and now I’m learning how to manage a team with very different backgrounds and opinions,” says Senn. “I’m discovering myself as a leader through the MBAT. Together, we’re learning how to work as a team with a common goal – making the quality of the MBAT reflect the quality of HEC and all of the participating schools.”

The three-day sporting competition is in its 24th year and will take place from May 8th to May 10th.

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When the boom hit a few years ago to begin including the GRE as a testing option for MBA admissions, uncertainty among applicants ran high. The idea of allowing students to take only one exam as they contemplate going for an MBA versus another advanced degree is a solid one. However, many candidates wondered: would business schools view GRE scores with the same regard as the long-trusted standard, the GMAT?

According to new data released by Educational Testing Service (ETS), which administers the GRE, more MBA applicants than ever before chose the GRE revised General Test to meet admission requirements during the 2012-13 testing year. Nearly 10% of individuals who took one of the two leading business school admission tests and indicated MBA as their intended degree objective, opted for the GRE.

Melissa Korn‘s recent story on this increase for the Wall Street Journal reports that one in five applicants to Yale School of Management submitted GRE scores this year. SOM admissions director Bruce DelMonico tells Korn that figure is double the rate of 2010.

The article goes on to note an increase at UT McCombs School of Business as well, where 14% of applicants to the full-time program submitted GRE scores this year, compared to just 10% for the class of 2014.

Here at Stacy Blackman Consulting, we noticed a similar uptick in our recent online survey of 675 MBA applicants, the results of which are shared in the Wall Street Journal piece. We found that 7.7% of respondents were interested in the GRE, up from 4% last year, while the share planning to take the GMAT fell to 92.4% from 96.3%.

David Payne, vice president of global education at ETS, believes greater numbers of MBA applicants will choose the GRE because of its many benefits, which include a ScoreSelect option that lets you decide which GRE scores to send to the schools you designate, and its test-taker friendly design.

“We have heard from schools that they are seeing anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of their MBA applicants presenting GRE scores, and we expect this number to continue to grow,” Payne says.

For some applicants, this news may set to rest any doubts about submitting the GRE rather than the GMAT with their MBA application. After all, the admissions committees are adamant about giving equal weight to both exams. However, until more schools begin publishing average GRE scores alongside the GMAT scores of admitted applicants, many MBA hopefuls will likely continue to hedge their bets and use the tried-and-true GMAT instead.

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Two new deanships have been announced in the last week, and both are connected to UCLA Anderson School of Management. Professor and corporate finance scholar Mark Garmaise has been named dean of the full-time MBA program at UCLA Anderson, and his predecessor Andrew Ainslie will become dean at University of Rochester Simon Business School. Both will assume their new responsibilities in July.

Garmaise’s academic research has centered on using empirical data to investigate the effects of asymmetric information and incomplete contracting as they relate to real estate markets and entrepreneurial firms.

A Harvard University graduate with a Ph.D. in finance from Stanford Graduate School of Business, Garmaise joined UCLA Anderson as a visiting assistant professor in the finance area in 2001. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2008 and to full professor this year.

“In Mark, we have a combination of remarkable talents – an outstanding teacher who is dedicated to his MBA students, and a trailblazing scholar who infuses his teaching with relevant and emerging research findings,” says Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson.

“Mark is an award-winning instructor and highly respected authority on finance, venture capital and private equity. That combination, and his dedication to UCLA Anderson’s MBA program, will assure strong continuing leadership for the Anderson MBA program.”

In announcing Ainslie’s appointment as the seventh dean of the Simon School, university President Joel Seligman spoke of Ainslie’s stellar impact at UCLA Anderson, where it was noted that during his tenure, the school increased its admissions by more than 60%, increased placements by more than 20%, and revised its curriculum.

“He will be an outstanding dean. He is a creative and dynamic leader in business education,” Seligman says.

Ainslie has been associate professor of marketing at UCLA Anderson since 2005; he was assistant professor of marketing there from 2000 to 2005. From 1997 through 2000 he was assistant professor of marketing at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.He joined Anderson in 2000 and has led the full-time MBA program since 2010.

“Andrew Ainslie impressed us with his leadership experience, his commitment to the research mission, and his farsighted approach to the challenges facing all MBA programs,” says Janice Willett, chair of the Trustees and Friends Advisory Committee for the search.

Dean Olian adds, “We are proud of Andrew’s ascent to the Rochester deanship and so appreciative of his many accomplishments at Anderson.His unrestrained passion for MBA education and his clear analytic focus to drive strategic actions will no doubt advance the Simon School just as it benefitted Anderson.”

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How many schools are applicants applying to? How important are MBA rankings? Should you consider submitting GRE scores rather than the GMAT? These are just a few of the questions we here at Stacy Blackman Consulting attempted to find out with our MBA application trends survey, conducted online in April.

Poets & Quants picked up the story this week, and shared the main data points with their readers. Based on the responses of 675 participants who intend to apply to business school in the 2014-2015 admissions cycle, the survey showed an uptick in the number of applicants planning to apply to five schools this year. More than 25% plan to do so, up from 22.9% who aimed for five schools in 2013.

This increase reflects the growing awareness among applicants of the ultra competitive nature of b-school admissions, but also, an understanding that there are more than just a handful of terrific schools out there. Just a few years ago, highly competitive applicants wouldn’t go for an MBA unless they could get into Harvard, Stanford or Wharton. Now, applicants are interested in applying to a range of schools.

In fact, the list has become a lot longer and broader, with applicants adopting a more open attitude about where to study and adding schools such as UCLA Anderson, UT McCombs School of Business, and UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School into the mix, in addition to the power trio. MBA admissions has become increasingly competitive at the elite level, and applicants now realize that an MBA from a highly selective school offers all of the benefits and a similar return on investment as a degree from a very top brand.

This year’s survey showed that once again, applicants place a lot of weight on the value of rankings, with almost 70% of respondents saying rankings are extremely important, and less than 1% saying they weren’t important. Meanwhile, the influence of school reputation on an applicant’s decision of where to attend dipped slightly, from 52.4% in 2013 to 50.87% this year.

Applicants are starting to place greater attention to the strength of a school’s job placement program—21.87% this year, versus 18.8% in 2013. Career advancement remains the most important reason for attending business school for 43.7% of survey participants, followed by the desire to change careers, which motivates 38.17% of MBA hopefuls.

Finally, our survey polled prospective students on their interest in submitting GRE scores with their b-school application. While the GMAT still reigns supreme as the exam of choice, GRE interest this year grew to 7.65%, up from 3.97% in 2013.

At this point I’m not pushing the GRE, and we typically tell clients that unless they have a hard time with the GMAT, or with testing in general, the GMAT is the better way to go. The schools are just more comfortable with the GMAT in general since it’s such a known entity.

I believe people can always derive great value from going to business school, but many factors affect the kinds of programs that best meet their needs. Applicants need to find the very best fit for their own game plan.

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Every prospective student is looking for some advantage for their application to business school whether it’s a unique personal story, unique work experience, or a slightly stronger GMAT score. To gain that edge, we have to dedicate our time and energy. There’s no way to fake it.

The GMAT is no exception. We have to allocate our time wisely and focus our energies efficiently to gain that edge. To ramp up your GMAT prep and gain that edge, I have four pieces of advice. You’ll find that these tips will supercharge your prep and better prepare you for test day.

Quality Test Prep Material

Nothing can boost test prep like using quality materials. The market is suffuse with materials that are mediocre to terrible. Bad materials mean insufficient prep and lead to poor test scores. It’s not just that the materials don’t mimic the GMAT; if they aren’t created with rigor and constantly improved, these materials can be downright misleading.

Step back a moment and assess your materials. Are you using one of the best GMAT books of 2014? Or do you rely on questions posted to forums, such as Beat the GMAT and GMAT Club. Don’t expect to hit your stride in the weeks before the test if you haven’t prepped with the best of the best. Find the best materials now so you aren’t one of the 20% of students who retake the GMAT.

Wind Sprints—Not Marathons

Bad study habits dampen success—not ramp it up. The trouble, though, is that many students don’t know that they’ve adopted bad study habits. They believed a myth and haven’t thought to question its validity since. Let’s dispel it: long study sessions don’t work!

Students tell me they study eight hours a day and are still not improving. My first recommendation is to stop studying eight hours a day. Long sessions of studying don’t help students learn more; it’s a fallacy to think that more time equals more learning.

They need to stop running long distances and practice their wind sprints. Plenty of research shows that short bursts of focus and learning outweigh long periods of study.

Let’s say you want to study 12 hours a week. Plan on four sessions, three hours each, and after each hour take a 10 minute break. Better yet, budget six sessions, two hours each. Studying in this way encourages spaced repetition, which is shown to improve the long-term retention of information. Instead of doing everything in a six hour period, you give your mind time to rest and incorporate the information into long-term memory.

As counterintuitive as it may sound, short bursts are better than marathons.

Set a Timer

One of the biggest misconceptions is that students think their abilities untimed are the same timed. Many students do not make time a part of their prep and pay the price on test day. Or students wait too long to start practicing under time pressure and realize that they are in trouble. So as soon as possible, set a timer when solving practice problems.

Choose a set of five questions and try to finish them in ten minutes. If this is too difficult at first, that is, you can’t even get close, set the timer for thirteen minutes. Even though this is more time than you should take to solve a problem, at least you have a timer on and you are practicing your pacing. As you progress, dial down the time until you are at a good pace—about nine minutes for five Verbal questions and about ten minutes for five Quant questions.

Spend Time Studying—Not Planning

Time management doesn’t refer only to pacing on the test. It also refers to how we spend our study time. As little time should be spent planning your studies. Front-load all your planning so that you don’t have to do it every session. Decide what to do each day based on your materials and how much time you have. Use a study schedule created by experts, such as a 1 month GMAT study schedule, or base your study schedule on their recommendations.

As you will see in the study schedules, each day is broken into parts. Work on multiple skills in a single study session. This is the best way to study and the best way to learn. Ramp up your studies with more focused study.

Takeaway

Every applicant to business school is looking for that unique advantage. With the GMAT, it’s no different. Take these suggestions and ramp up your study sessions. Grab quality materials, aim for focused, short bursts of study, start practicing your timing, and get all your planning out of the way so you can spend more time actually studying. Start implementing them now to improve your chances for success on test day.

This post was written by Kevin Rocci, resident GMAT expert at Magoosh, a leader in GMAT prep. For more advice on taking the GMAT, check out Magoosh’s GMAT blog.

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Columbia Business School has announced the MBA application deadlines for the 2014-2015 admissions cycle. This year’s deadlines are:

January 2014 EntryDeadline: October 8, 2014

August 2014 EntryEarly Decision: October 8, 2014

Merit Fellowship Consideration: January 7, 2015

Regular Decision: April 15, 2015

Columbia Business School students may enroll in either August or January. The CBS admissions website notes that the paths are identical in terms of competitiveness of admissions, academic rigor, and student resources, but they differ in terms of timing and the opportunity to complete a summer internship.

All applications are due at 11:59 p.m. EST on the day of the deadline. For more information, visit the Columbia Business School admissions website.

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The MIT Sloan School of Management has updated its MBA application deadlines for the 2014-2015 admissions season. The deadlines are:

Round 1Deadline: September 23, 2014

Notification: December 17, 2014

Round 2Deadline: January 8, 2015

Notification: April 6, 2015

Leaders for Global Operations ProgramDeadline: December 15, 2014

Notification: March 2, 2015

Applicants must submit all materials by 3 p.m. EST on the day of the deadline. MIT Sloan expects the application for August 2015 entry to be available in July. For more information, visit MIT Sloan’s admissions website.

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Round 3 applicants to Harvard Business School have just one more day of anxious waiting before their fate is announced. In her latest update to the Director’s Blog, Dee Leopold informed readers that decisions would be emailed at noon Boston time on May 14th.

At that time, applicants will either receive an admit with lots of details on what to do next; placement on the waitlist, which Leopold hopes to resolve speedily; or a ding, with more information on dates/times for “touchpoint” calls, the director writes.

Another admissions season is coming to an end, but Round 1 is just a few short months away. If this cycle didn’t yield the results you were hoping for, don’t give up! You still have time to enhance your candidacy and strengthen your application for the 2014-2015 season.

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The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School has announced the MBA application deadlines for the 2014-2015 admissions cycle. This year’s three deadlines are:

Round 1Deadline: October 1, 2014

Notification: December 16, 2014

Round 2Deadline: January 5, 2015

Notification: March 24, 2015

Round 3Deadline: March 26, 2015

Notification: May 5, 2015

* * *

Deadlines for Wharton’s MBA/MA-Lauder and JD/MBA programs are:

Round 1Deadline: October 1, 2014

Notification: December 16, 2014

Round 2Deadline: January 5, 2015

Notification: March 24, 2015

To be considered for a round, all applications must be submitted by 5p.m. EST on the day of the deadline. For more information, visit the Wharton School’s admissions website.

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Just one day after Harvard Business School sent out Round 3 decisions, director of MBA admissions and financial aid Dee Leopold was back on the blog today with the news that HBS would be repeating the optional essay prompt that created such a stir when it was first announced.

The (optional) “essay” question is:

“You’re applying to Harvard Business School. We can see your resume, academic transcripts, extracurricular activities, awards, post-MBA career intentions, test scores, and what your recommenders have to say about you. What else would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy?”

Although Leopold went on record last year saying Harvard Business School would always be changing the essay question, the director admits the admissions team really liked the wide range of responses they received from admitted candidates.

She goes on to list the two recommender questions for the upcoming season, which are as follows:

• How do the candidate’s performance, potential, background, or personal qualities compare to those of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? Please provide specific examples. (300 words)

• Please describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (250 words)

The application will go live in mid-June, says Leopold, and the Round 1 deadline has been set for September 9, 2014. HBS will conduct interviews from mid-October through November, with notification on or around December 10th, the director adds.

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Carnegie Mellon University has formally launched an Integrated Innovation Institute, a market-focused center that will cross-train students in the values, principles, thinking and methods of engineering, design and business — the three disciplines considered to be the core of innovation.

Drawing on Carnegie Mellon’s top-ranked College of Engineering, School of Design and Tepper School of Business, the institute’s origins lie in the groundbreaking principles of Carnegie Mellon Professor and Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon, a founding father of artificial intelligence who also established the basis for a science of design. Simon helped lay the foundation for cognitive science, crossed disciplinary boundaries of half a dozen fields, and set a precedent for collaborative research.

“Global business challenges demand a new breed of executive talent. Our integrated innovation tenets force students outside their previous training and comfort zones, creating hybrid thinkers and doers,” says institute co-director Peter Boatwright, the Carnegie Bosch Professor of Marketing at the Tepper School of Business, in a statement.

“We’ve been moving toward this pivotal point for years, training students in a deeply integrated and pragmatic method that directly addresses the barriers inhibiting speed in industry.”

The Integrated Innovation Institute comes amid much global debate on the need to “fix” innovation. A recent study by Accenture found two dominant obstacles: a conservative approach focusing on line-extension renovation rather than a broad portfolio of bold ideas; and a lack of systematic, enterprise-wide processes capable of timely commercialization of inventions into products or services at scale.

“Innovation can be studied, formalized, taught — and continuously improved upon with new knowledge,” says institute co-director Jonathan Cagan, the Ladd Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering. “We’ve elevated collaboration to a new plane, and what we’re doing could only come out of Carnegie Mellon’s rich history of interdisciplinary work.

Augmenting these degrees is a pilot innovation laboratory where graduate student teams tackle corporate-sponsored cases with real-world rigor and accountability, and where institute-funded projects explore vexing societal problems. The institute also conducts proprietary applied research, and extends its training through executive education, customized company programs and open-enrollment consortia.

“Increasingly, organizations recognize the impact that engineers, designers and marketers who understand one another’s thinking can have working together at the ‘fuzzy front end’ of a project,” says institute co-director Eric Anderson, an associate professor in the School of Design and associate dean of the College of Fine Arts.

“Sponsors report that our graduates are a market-level above, with the agility to step into any range of scenarios, in any industry and immediately apply their knowledge.”

With the launch of the Integrated Innovation Institute, Anderson, Boatwright and Cagan believe that Carnegie Mellon’s tradition of interdisciplinary collaboration will carry forward through generations of “elite integrated innovators” who will transform the world.

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The Stanford Graduate School of Business has updated its admissions website with the two essays required for the 2014-2015 MBA application. The questions remain essentially unchanged from last year’s application.

Essay A: What matters most to you, and why?(650-850 suggested word count)A strong response to this question will:

Focus on the “why” rather than the “what.”

Reflect the self-examination process you used to write your response.

Genuinely illustrate who you are and how you came to be the person you are.

Share the insights, experiences, and lessons that shaped your perspectives, rather than focusing merely on what you’ve done or accomplished.

Be written from the heart, and illustrate how a person, situation, or event has influenced you.

Essay B: Why Stanford? (250-450 suggested word count)Enlighten us on how earning your MBA at Stanford will enable you to realize your ambitions.

A strong response to this essay question will:

Explain your decision to pursue graduate education in management.

Explain the distinctive opportunities you will pursue at Stanford.

LengthYour answers for both essay questions combined may not exceed 1,100 words.

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This post originally appeared on Stacy’s “Strictly Business” MBA Blog on U.S.News.comInternational students typically make up 25 percent to 40 percent of MBA cohorts at top U.S. business schools.

It’s not surprising that the overwhelming majority of applicants from Latin America want to pursue an MBA degree in the U.S. According to data from the most recent QS Top MBA Applicant Survey, more than 70 percent say the U.S. is their destination of choice, followed by Canada at 30.3 percent.

The poll also confirms that Latin American applicants place a high value on specializations – higher than any other world region – in order to meet their individual needs. While all b-school hopefuls should tailor their school selections to those that will enhance their career, this is particularly important for students who plan to return to their home countries after graduation. Latin American applicants should research the strength of each potential school’s international placement records and alumni network before applying.

Travel expenses can make campus visits difficult, so applicants from Latin America should not miss the opportunity to participate in local “coffee chats,” which are typically organized and led by current students while visiting their home countries during winter break.

In an April post to the Daytime MBA Student Blog of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, Joaquin Brahm of Chile calls coffee chats “a must” in the application process.? These informal events, often held in homes, are a great resource for applicants to hear firsthand? about all aspects of the MBA experience, including personal questions about everyday student life.

“We received only good feedback about coffee chats in Latin America,”? says Yonathan Lapchik, admissions cabinet member of the Latin American Student Association at Fuqua. “Prospective students found it a very useful step in their application process. Our idea is to continue developing these kinds of events in the future and establish them as another resource for applicants in their pathway to Fuqua.”

Many MBA programs offer incentives and scholarships to applicants from Latin America, and some schools are introducing efforts to attract potential candidates. Last year, the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler Business School launched a Latin American Visitor Program ?designed to encourage prospective full-time MBA students from Latin America to visit the campus.

The program provides a travel subsidy of $600 and waives the $145 admissions application fee for up to 20 sponsored students. Kenan-Flagler also offers up to 10 full-tuition fellowships to applicants from Latin America each year as part of the new Fellowship for the Americas award.

As I often write on this blog, the admissions committee wants to get to know each applicant beyond their resume, and the MBA essays are the perfect opportunity to share unique personal or family background information that would allow the reader to understand your core values and motivations.

One of my clients discussed being the first from his family to go to college, and the intensity of breaking family tradition and moving away. This made for a much more interesting essay than merely naming the school that he went to. In other words, that back story – the discussion of the decision – was the most interesting part.

Another client also wove family into her application by addressing a brother’s serious illness and how it affected family relations, events and her personal and professional goals. Don’t be afraid to open up with details of experiences that set you apart and have shaped the person you are today.

Since English likely isn’t your first language, it’s important to demonstrate a high level of fluency that will allow you to contribute actively to class discussions. This you can do during your MBA interview.

Whether you interview over the phone, by video chat or in-person, make sure you practice beforehand with a native English speaker or someone who has lived in the U.S. for a long time and who can provide feedback on American business etiquette or your English language usage.

Once on campus, you’ll gain access to a network stretching across the U.S. and around the globe. Try to network with Latino alumni who hold leadership positions in the U.S. and are often looking to groom the next generation.

During recruiting, keep in mind U.S. companies may not want to hire someone if it involves helping them obtain an H-1B visa, since the employer must prove it has searched extensively for a qualified U.S. citizen or permanent resident and that the international candidate is the best option.

However, if the company is an international firm and you’re willing to relocate elsewhere in Latin America or to a region where visa sponsorship won’t be an issue, ask about hiring options outside of the U.S. Your American MBA will put you leagues ahead of local applicants.

As business relationships across the Americas continue to expand, MBA applicants from Latin America can rest assured they have much to contribute to the U.S. business school classroom, particularly where cultural differences, language issues and differing business practices come into play.

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In case you missed it, the New York Times had an interesting article over the weekend exploring the role travel plays during one’s MBA experience.

Some travel opportunities during b-school are curricular and offer course credit as part of a class. Other trips are student-organized and career-focused but don’t include academic credit, such as the so-called “tech treks” to Silicon Valley. Finally, MBA students can find multiple opportunities for leisure travel across the globe during holiday breaks and long weekends.

Each of these experiences provides valuable networking settings where students can bond with their classmates, and the Times notes that the array of travel possibilities in b-school has grown dramatically of late.

Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer has taught for 35 years at the GSB, and tells the Times, “The social aspects of business school have become more prominent over the last decade — there is no doubt about that. Students go to Vegas and take over a Southwest Airlines plane, they go to the Sundance movie festival, and some of them rent houses on Lake Tahoe.”

So what’s the potential down side to all the camaraderie-building that group travel provides? Well, it comes at significant financial cost, and estimates quoted in the Times are all over the map. The article notes travel budgets range anywhere from $5,000 to $30K during a two-year program.

Students of modest means who don’t want to miss out on these networking excursions pay for them with credit cards, banking on the belief that it will pay off down the line with a high-paying job. Still others take on jobs to pay their way.

Despite the sometimes exorbitant cost, the overwhelming majority of the MBA students and graduates interviewed by the Times seems to find significant value in these travel experiences. Some point to employment offers and internships that came about thanks to a school-sponsored trip.

MIT Sloan School of Management alumna Samantha Joseph (MBA ’09) worked as a teaching assistant to pay for her travel expenses, which included trips to nine countries during her two years at MIT Sloan. Though she didn’t receive course credit for most of these experiences, she tells the Times they were an important part of her education.

“If you want to be a global leader in any industry, it’s important to see how the business world works and runs in other countries,” says Joseph, now director of corporate responsibility and sustainability at Iron Mountain, a data and records management company.

Ultimately, students must decide for themselves what is financially feasible when faced with the dizzying array of travel options that come up during an MBA program. Personally, I believe there’s so much to be gained from making strong connections with your classmates, and there’s almost no better place to do so then outside the classroom—and possibly outside the country.

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The University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business has updated the application deadlines for the 2014-2015 admissions cycle.The three deadlines are:

Round 1Deadline: October 1, 2014Notification: January 15, 2015

Round 2Deadline: January 7, 2015Notification: March 26, 2015

Round 3Deadline: March 11, 2015Notification: May 14, 2015

The Haas School of Business is a member of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, and deadlines for applying through the Consortium have not yet been announced. For more information, visit the Berkeley MBA admissions website.

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All applications are due at 5 p.m. EST on the day of the deadline. Prospective students who are applying to Tuck through the Consortium will receive two decisions; one from Tuck regarding their admission decision and a second from the Consortium regarding their membership decision. For more information, visit the Dartmouth/Tuck MBA admissions website.

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MBA Acceptance Rate by Undergraduate Major Many applicants may wonder if their undergraduate major impacts their chance of getting into business school. Admissions data suggests that your college major...